K3rmy:Christopher Reeve's Superman was cognizant enough to take the fight OUTSIDE OF THE CITY so that innocents did not get hurt while he was fighting Zod and his minions.

Yeah, Zod and his minions were playing rope a dope with Superman all though the fight scenes. Keep in mind that although Superman is stronger than the Kryptonians, he was fighting seasoned soldiers bred for battle while he hadn't even thrown a punch against a person before due to this strength (as the movie reminded us of when they showed the scene of Clark getting bullied as a kid and holding back). The only time he really brought the fight to a city was when he lost his shiat when Zod threatened Martha and he hurled him into Smallville. All during the Metropolis fight, Superman was either on the other side of the world trying to disable the World Engine, or was struggling to gain any kind of control of the fight. It was an origin story, so a young and inexperienced Superman isn't going to quickly gain the upper hand.

I rewatched it a couple of times recently on HBO and it really holds together well from a plotting standpoint. There's really not any major complaint that isn't covered in the script, aside from why the Kryptonians would bother changing the environment of Earth to be more like Krypton if it will make them weaker.

Man of Steel had a good movie inside of it. There was just enough of it present that I could see its shape: As a child, Superman struggles to cope with his powers and his parents' (especially his father's) desire to keep those powers hidden in order to protect him. His father dies in a way that makes him feel guilty for fighting his father all those years about whether to hide his powers and as a result he retreats from the world and strictly follows his father's wishes as penance.

The arrival of Zod forces him into a journey of self-discovery and, ultimately, acceptance of who he is in order for him to emerge just in time as the hero the world needs. His younger years are told in flashback culminating in the big reveal about the death of his father to explain why Superman is the slightly misanthropic but still well-meaning wreck he is at the beginning of the film, after which he decides to move forward and become the person he's meant to be in the present.

You could make a decent movie with that outline. Unfortunately, they needed massive edits because the movie was way too long for the amount of content they had, and they bungled a few critical scenes for that plot to have any weight.

K3rmy:Christopher Reeve's Superman was cognizant enough to take the fight OUTSIDE OF THE CITY so that innocents did not get hurt while he was fighting Zod and his minions.

Watch the movie again. The fight was after the world machine destroyed a good share of Metropolis. Oh and if Superman didn't fight Zod in Metropolis, Zod would have continued down his desired path of killing people regardless, after the world machine had been destroyed. Exactly what should have Superman done? Stood outside the city and watched Zod kill people? That way, in your mind, Superman wouldn't have been there and not been responsible?

K3rmy:Christopher Reeve's Superman was cognizant enough to take the fight OUTSIDE OF THE CITY so that innocents did not get hurt while he was fighting Zod and his minions.

In Superman II, they destroyed a good chunk of Metropolis before the fight was taken to the Fortress of Solitude. Plus, in that movie, Zod's only motivation was to fight Superman.

In Man of Steel, Superman had to stop the World Machine from killing humanity. He had to fight Zod and his folks to make that possible, and getting them to go to another venue doesn't seem feasible, when their job was to stand by and protect the World Machine.

ToastmasterGeneral:Confabulat: Man of Steel was a better Superman movie than any of the Reeve flicks. They are embarrassing to watch in 2014.

Yep.

Good for nostalgia only.

Yes, and Peter Jackson's King Kong was better than the 1933 version. You kids today, it takes more than splosions to make a good movie. Sorry, but Batman was 100% correct, "Man of Steel . . . was uninspiring."

Man of Steel is a good flick, holds up with the others in this day and age, and has the proper tone. Haters are just regurgitating shiat they hear on the Internet. Like someone said above, I re watched it on HBO, and none of the usual criticisms of this movie really hold any weight....and especially DERP METROPOLIS one. To quote the girl (whatever her name was) "when you save one, we'll kill a million"

(or something close to that). so yeah....no...he had to fight in the city.

chewielouie:ToastmasterGeneral: Confabulat: Man of Steel was a better Superman movie than any of the Reeve flicks. They are embarrassing to watch in 2014.

Yep.

Good for nostalgia only.

Yes, and Peter Jackson's King Kong was better than the 1933 version. You kids today, it takes more than splosions to make a good movie. Sorry, but Batman was 100% correct, "Man of Steel . . . was uninspiring."

K3rmy:Christopher Reeve's Superman was cognizant enough to take the fight OUTSIDE OF THE CITY so that innocents did not get hurt while he was fighting Zod and his minions.

I get the argument that Superman was forced to fight in the city because he was barely on equal terms with Zod and his crew and couldn't dictate the terms of the battle, and that he was new/inexperienced so he couldn't outmaneuver him. My problem is that he's just as willing to destroy buildings by throwing Zod through them and blowing up property while ignoring all the people fleeing in terror ("It was safe! Everyone probably evacuated the buildings!" my ass). If he was seen minimizing/mitigating the damage of the fight it would go a long way to actually satisfying a lot of nerd complaints about that fight. Then at the end, after what was probably hundreds killed in the fight so far, suddenly one family being in danger is what drives Superman to kill Zod? And then after his initial scream we cut immediately to everyone happy that the threat is gone and NOBODY discusses what just happened?

Perhaps Snyder should put out a press release, tweet something, make some effort to tell everybody waiting for a Superman like the one they remember from the 80s, or even from the 90s sitcom, that the plotlines now are of headier substance than in the past. Nevertheless, those disenfranchised few should hold on, best they can, as I think Snyder will take their concerns for the franchise to concern, he hasn't dropped them, forgotten them, or anything. But, a storyline like that of the most recent film was too heavy, even for Superman to lift.

Mad_Radhu:There's really not any major complaint that isn't covered in the script,

I shall qualify my questions with the standard "No really, I liked the movie despite these things" defense.

1. WHERE. ARE. ALL. THE. DEAD. PEOPLE? I mean they took down umpteen skyscrapers and there was ZERO collateral damage? Really?

2. So Pa Kent is 20 feet from a tornado and isn;t being sucked off the ground? SURRRRRRRRRRRRE.

3. That and the fact that there are plenty of OTHER scenes where no one is reacting to the CGI. Especiallty when Supes, Lois and the Army dude from Dollhouse™ are all meeting and all of the soliders have their guns trained on Supes. He liftsoff and ALL OF THEM JUST KEEP LOOKING FORWARD LIKE HE IS THERE for another 15 seconds.

Loved Man of Steel and I love that it's on 24/7 on HBO because I keep catching more.

I only have minor complaints and they're in the "accept the premise" department.

1) Zod goes to Martha Kents front door looking for Clark. The world can't piece together then that he's Superman?2) Presumably lots of people died in the battle. Why was Superman so concerned about the 3 people in the corner Zod was going to heat-vision kill? It would have made more sense if Lois was in that group, but instead they were just some people. And couldn't Superman have put his hands over Zod's eyes? Or couldn't those people, I don't know, have ducked under the heat ray?

Again, minor things.

As for Superman II, Zod DID do lots of damage and kill lots of people. Though due to the FX of the day, it wasn't as easy to destroy a city. Blowing people down the street was easier!

Also, why does Ursa flinch when the snake bites her? She's super now! She wouldn't have even felt it!! That's the kind of thing that would get TORN APART on the internet these days.

So, lets get this straight...no Lex Luthor, and his identity isn't really a secret, and the bad guys can't breathe our atmosphere? Weird.

Reeve did a great job with Supeman. This was a nice take on him as well. But the villains were terrible. In fact the supporting cast in this movie was wooden and their roles boring. Except Pa Kent. He played a nice role...even though it was Costner. And the guy playing Clark was....boring.

And ultimately what I didn't like about the movie is that Superman became too powerful. He is not 1000 times stronger than us, he is a million times stronger. He is too powerful to be a fun character.

Confabulat:Man of Steel was a better Superman movie than any of the Reeve flicks. They are embarrassing to watch in 2014.

They were embarrassing to watch when they were made. Man of Steel was still terrible though; got's nothing to do with Reeve or the older movies. The writing was dumb; the philosophy was not just dumb and wrong but actively bad; the acting was wooden; and the attempt to make the Supes property "edgy", "angsty", and "dark" was unnecessary and frankly misses the entire point of the character. Changing Superman from an earnest, hardworking achiever deeply involved in his(adopted) community and with a heart so big he went into journalism so he could fight in print the injustices he can't legally punch to bits, into a Nietzschean loner demi-god detached from human society and sent purposely to awe humanity into submission undermines not only what makes Supes great and the message he was always written to convey, but also transforms his father from a far-sighted, lone moral voice against the excesses and arrogance of the Kyptonian elite into a mere proponent of their galaxy-wide outrages and chauvinistic racism by different means.

Man of Steel just completely misses the point, repeatedly. The CG for the action sequences was pretty sweet though.

Freezing cold, you'll die after a couple of minutes of exposure.. so Lois Lane goes out in this cold and has no problem whatsoever, wearing a flimsy coat.

No powers in the ship... the atmosphere from Krypton? but yet a small breach and he's instantly fine (considering that he does get to breather any "earth air").

It's just those little things that really messed up... Superman's power are from the sun, not the air he breathes, etc.

They kept messing things up like that which contradicts one thing after another.. if you're going to make a big deal about something, stick with it, don't change or invalidate it in the next scene to basically "Deus ex Machina" everything.

I hate this argument. This is making the article's point. Forget you know ANYTHING about Superman. This is a NEW story. Everything is new. It's the first time you've heard of Superman. THIS Superman killed someone. And he was so upset about it, because he clearly didn't want to but had no choice, that maybe NOW his rule will be "I won't kill people every again"Maybe this is where his code comes from?

Hate this argument too. Poor kid was an orphan. Lots of other superheroes have MUCH worse lives. Much worse childhoods. Sure it's devastating that he saw his parents killed. But c'mon..... is that justification for this whole life? He still grew up in the lap of luxury. Not like his parents were killed so he was forced to live on the streets and forced to turn into this Batman character.

Confabulat:Man of Steel was a better Superman movie than any of the Reeve flicks. They are embarrassing to watch in 2014.

Sorry, but no. Man of Steel was ok, but it failed to make me care about a single character in the movie. Pa Kent dies, meh. Ma Kent get's threatened, oh well. Lois's life is in danger, so what? Hell I found myself barely caring about Supes, much less anyone else in the flick. The characters just seemed flat to me.

imfallen_angel:RyansPrivates: So if he doesn't what did he do at to Zod at the end of the theatrical release of Superman II?

You mean the part where he strip them of their powers and have them picked up by the local authorities? (then flies off with Lois back to Metropolis where he wipes her memories)

Not the emboldend piece. The theatrical release didn't have that tacked on PC to make palatable for TV. In the theatrical release they get thrown down a trench to (presumably) their deaths. And they are powerless at the time.

buntz:Hate this argument too. Poor kid was an orphan. Lots of other superheroes have MUCH worse lives. Much worse childhoods. Sure it's devastating that he saw his parents killed. But c'mon..... is that justification for this whole life? He still grew up in the lap of luxury. Not like his parents were killed so he was forced to live on the streets and forced to turn into this Batman character.

He was traumatized, blamed himself (he made them leave the Theatre), he became obsessed with the crimes that's happening all the time in Gotham.

When you consider that so many Farkers appear traumatized over the most denign thing, are outraged over the stupidest things and rant on Fark like it's their life's mission... yeah, I'd say that watching your parents be killed in front of you in a way that you blame yourself, will break something in your psyche.

Mad_Radhu:K3rmy: Christopher Reeve's Superman was cognizant enough to take the fight OUTSIDE OF THE CITY so that innocents did not get hurt while he was fighting Zod and his minions.

Yeah, Zod and his minions were playing rope a dope with Superman all though the fight scenes. Keep in mind that although Superman is stronger than the Kryptonians, he was fighting seasoned soldiers bred for battle while he hadn't even thrown a punch against a person before due to this strength (as the movie reminded us of when they showed the scene of Clark getting bullied as a kid and holding back).

Which is why the end fight scene at the end was so awful. The more talented fighter (Zod) should've have squashed the guy who had less-than-0% fighting experience at the point when Zod decides to not hold back any punches since the movie showed them to be pretty at equal strength at that time...regardless of all the mumbo-jumbo talk the movie said about Clark's 30 years of being on the planet. Or Zod should've been showing using that vast amount of military strategy to his advantage. Or something.

Remember, that born-to-be-a-nebbish-scientist Ka-El almost beat Zod in a fist fight at the start of the movie. It's almost as if Snyder sets up an interesting world of idea, but then at some point he goes "It's cool punchy-kicky time! Let's throw away all of those awesome ideas!"

Then again, Zod could just be a lousy fighter regardless of his genetic upbringing.

I don't know, sure, Superman 2 is in a time capsule of when it was made, but resolution of how Superman beats Zod just feels a lot more interesting, where Superman realizes that Zod and himself really can't beat each other up to a win, so he uses his knowledge of people around him and finds a clever solution (by using Luthor's underhandedness). I kind of wish that that's the way MoS would've ended, with Clark using some bit of his 30 years of human knowledge to win the battle, instead of simply taking the easy story-telling way out of "I break your neck like a chicken bone."

The weirdest part of MoS is how completely joyless and un-fun the movie is. For all of it's faults, Superman Returns has more fun and wonder in this 1:30 scene than the entire MoS movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtJ_VSQrW4Y